‘Shaped by Memory’ – by Paul Westmoreland This is the fourth published novel by Paul Westmoreland and, like its predecessors, is an absorbing and intriguing tale with a compelling narrative. The author is a gifted storyteller and the reader finds himself drawn into the comings and goings (literally so in many places) of the characters and wanting to see how they each ‘turn out’. Once more, as with his previous books, we are presented with a complicated family tree and characters whose relationships, successful or otherwise, form the bedrock of the story. The title of the novel immediately...

The Hiding Place: Paul Westmoreland The Hiding place is Paul Westmoreland’s third published novel. It is a much longer work than his previous two novels but, like them, it has engaging characters, major and minor, but always significant, who weave in and out of a sure-footed plot. The novel centres on Mark Atkinson described, as he considers his reflection in the hallway mirror in Woodstock, his father’s grand and beautiful house in Yorkshire, as somewhat overweight with thick, dark-rimmed spectacles and a bald head. Mark’s mother, Judith, dies whilst he is still a young boy and his fathe...

Raineland: Paul Westmoreland In 'Back to the Future' (2), one of an enormously successful trilogy of time travel films directed by Robert Zemeckis, Doc Brown tries to explain to Marty how the time continuum can be disrupted to create an alternative reality. He draws a line on a blackboard to represent time – present (then 1985), past and future – and a line going off at a tangent. "Somewhere in the past", the Doc says, " the timeline skewed into this tangent creating an alternate 1985." Paul Westmoreland's "Raineland" is a novel that shows the (sometimes) devastating effects of a sudden 'swe...

Christmas Night by Paul Westmoreland In Matthew, chapter 11, Jesus says: come unto me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest.’ Paul Westmoreland, in his second published book, includes a reference to these words and the burdens people carry form a large and significant part of the narrative. The principal male character is the Rev. James Rayburn, Rector of St. Luke’s, an Anglican church situated in a busy part of town close to the ’Old Quarter’ where several of the characters in the story live. James’ burden is his evident and growing doubt about his own faith; a situation seemingl...